This homemade shampoo bar recipe is formulated with ingredients hair loves like argan, babassu and jojoba oils, cocoa and shea butters and even silk! It’s then scented with a ginger and lime fragrance oil to give your sunny summer mornings a bit of extra lift. Don’t feel restricted to just using this homemade shampoo bar on your hair and scalp though. It’s also great for your face and skin with ingredients that also include rosehip oil and apricot kernel oil both praised for their moisturizing and healing properties. Plus this homemade shampoo bar recipe is palm free for the eco-conscious.

Instructions:

This homemade shampoo bar recipe yields approximately 20-24 homemade soap bars depending on how they are cut and uses two of my DIY wooden loaf soap molds. If you want to resize this recipe, I superfatted this recipe at 7% with water as percent of oil rate at 33%.

Begin by weighing out the lye and water and pouring the lye into the distilled water, mixing until dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Next , using your digital scale, weigh out all of the soapmaking oils and butters and combine in a large stainless steel pot. Heat over medium on the stove until all of the ingredients have melted then remove from heat. Set aside to cool.

Once the oils and lye/water reach around 95°-100°F you can begin the soapmaking process. I generally add my dry ingredients to the oils before adding the lye/water but you can add the clay and silk when you’d like by either mixing into the oils before adding the lye/water or adding to the soap at a light trace.

Pour the lye/water into the oils and mix with a stick blender until you reach a light trace. Then add the fragrance oil along with the silk amino acids powder and French green clay if you did not add these previously. Mix well then pour into your prepared soap molds and cover. After 24 hours have passed you can unmold your homemade soap loafs and cut into bars.

Allow your fresh homemade shampoo bars to cure for 4-6 weeks before use, then package and label as desired.

This new homemade soap recipe is palm free for those who are eco-conscious or find it difficult to source sustainable palm oil. It’s creamy lather leaves your face feeling moisturized, not tight and dry, and is formulated from moisture binding silk amino acids, rich jojoba, argan & sweet almond oils, shea butter and gentle rose kaolin clay that’s perfect for all skin types. But don’t just limit this lush handmade soap to your face. Try it as a body soap and even as a shampoo bar!

I’ve started experimenting with new soapmaking oils and ingredients recently. You may have already tried my Handmade Skin Loving Soap Recipe which contains not only my favorite butters – shea and illipe – but also a combination of rich soapmaking oils known for their skin conditioning properties – jojoba oil, soybean oil and rice bran oil. For this homemade jojoba and aloe soap recipe I wanted to combine ingredients that were known for not only their benefits to skin, but to hair as well, in order to create a multi-purpose bar of soap

Jojoba oil makes for a wonderful scalp cleanser for hair and absorbs quickly into skin since it’s similar to our skin’s own sebum. It helps to lock in moisture and reduce frizziness as well as help to strengthen hair and prevent split ends.

Aloe vera not only soothes skin, but it’s also been shown to promote hair growth it also helps to alleviate itching and dryness especially for those who suffer from scalp psoriasis. In addition, aloe helps hair to retain water and moisture and it’s anti-fungal properties also help to curb dandruff.

Illipe butter is a natural moisturizer that not only helps to prevent wrinkles and reduce inflammation, but also assists in preventing acne and eczema.

Directions:

For this homemade jojoba and aloe soap recipe, you will be following your basic cold process soapmaking instructions. If you have never made soap before, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the process before attempting this soap recipe as well as starting with a simpler recipe that contains fewer and less expensive ingredients should your first attempt at soapmaking fail.

Start by preparing your lye-water so it can begin cooling. Next, measure out the distilled water called for in the recipe into a large glass pyrex measuring cup or plastic pitcher. Then weigh out your lye using a digital kitchen scale and slowly pour into your distilled water in a well ventilated area. Stir with a non-aluminum utensil and set aside to cool.

Then, using a digital kitchen scale, weigh out your oils and butters and combine in a large non-aluminum pot. Place the pot on the stove and set to medium. Watch closely so that your oils don’t burn or start to boil. As soon as the oils have melted completely, remove from heat and turn off your burner. Set aside to cool. Keep tabs on the temperatures of you lye-water and oils with a kitchen thermometer. Once these both reach about 100°F you are ready to combine them.

While you are waiting on your lye-water and oils to cool, you can line your soap mold and prepare your other ingredients. Weigh out your aloe vera gel in a clean glass pyrex measuring cup and set aside. In a separate container, weigh out your fragrance or essential oils. I used a white tea fragrance for my own batch of this soap. However, you can also use essential oils based on their skin care properties. For dandruff or acne, try using a combination of rosemary and peppermint essential oils with just a touch of tea tree oil. You can also mix skin safe fragrance oils and essential oils together for your very own custom fragrance. Pink grapefruit fragrance oil mixed with a small amount of lemongrass and peppermint for example, smells heavenly and is perfect for summer. You can also weigh out your dried rose petals in a bowl or other container and set aside. I chose to use freshly dried pink rose petals from my rose bushes as I just happened to have them on hand.

Once your oils and lye-water have cooled, you’ll start by pouring the aloe vera gel into your melted oils. Next, slowly pour your lye-water into the mixture then use a stick (or immersion hand) blender to mix the ingredients. Once your soap reaches trace, mix in your fragrance and/or essential oils and rose petals if desired. Blend thoroughly, then pour your soap into the mold, cover with a piece of cardboard (or lid) followed by a towel to insulate the soap and set aside for 24 hours.

After twenty four hours have past, unmold your soap loaf and cut into bars. Then set your soap aside on a drying rack or on a wax or parchment paper covered surface to cure. Your soaps will be ready for use in 3-4 weeks and can then be packaged for use or sale.

For more soapmaking recipes, tips and techniques as well as advice, be sure to become a member of my new Google+ community, Soapmaking with Rebecca. This friendly community offers advice on soapmaking, soap recipes, techniques, and troubleshooting from both myself and the community. If you’d like to receive feedback and answers to your soapmaking questions without feeling like you’ve asked a dumb question or someone telling you to “just do the research” then this is the group for you. You can also share photos of your latest soap and bath & beauty creations along with any soap and bath & beauty recipes and tutorials you have posted to your own blog. Additionally you can also discover more homemade soap and bath and beauty recipes by following me on Pinterest, Facebook and Blog Lovin’.

A microdermabrasion at home? Why, yes you can. And you don’t have spend a lot of money to get it done!

Microdermabrasion is really just a fancy term for exfoliating sensitive skin areas – like your face. But you don’t need to spray your face with exfoliating crystals to get the same skin care benefits. Your Beauty Adviser Blog explains three methods for your own diy microdermabrasion at home using ingredients that most everyone already has on hand in their kitchen – ingredients like baking soda and water, lemon and sugar, and sea salt and olive oil. Head on over to YBA for these beauty recipes and then treat yourself once a week for healthy, glowing skin!

This book is a fun introduction to making homemade shampoo bars for those recently getting into melt and pour soapmaking. It provides overall comprehensive information you’ll need to get started and serves as a great springing board for later creating your own custom shampoo bar recipes for your family and their specific hair care needs.

How to Make Handmade Shampoo Bars begins by explaining the many benefits of making your own natural shampoo bars. Not only do you not have to worry about spilling shampoo bars, they also use less packaging, are perfect for travel and camping, easy to use, and they can be completely customized with your favorite scents or hair care needs. Additionally, homemade shampoo bars are economical and eco-friendly, dog safe and they can also be used on your face and body cutting out the need for additional products. What’s more, as many commercial soaps contain tallow – referred to as sodium tallowate in the ingredient list – which is render cow or pig fat, this book will allow you to create your own animal friendly products if you choose to live a vegan lifestyle.

There are also some wonderful informational sections on how to store your soap bases prior to and in between usage, the differences between fragrance oils and essential oils, fragrance blending tips, and what kinds of molds to use – including my new favorite soap molds, silicone molds, which allow for ease of soap removal and the creation of fun shapes. (They can also be used to make your own handmade solid sugar scrub cubes, homemade solid lotion bars, and bath bombs making them a great choice if you are wanting to make more of your own diy bath and body products.) Further, there’s a guide to natural additives like aloe, avocado oil, jojoba oil – even beer – that can be included in your handmade shampoo bars as well as a list of herbs and essential oils that are recommended for each hair type from dry to normal to oily as well as those suffering from hair loss or dandruff.

The handmade shampoo recipes within this book are divided into two sections – melt and pour shampoo bar recipes and hand-milled (or rebatched) shampoo bar recipes. Both of these methods are perfect for those who want to make their own quality bath products at home, but aren’t ready to delve into cold process soapmaking which involves the use of sodium hydroxide, commonly referred to as lye. Some of the homemade melt and pour shampoo bar recipes include Rosemary & Lavender, Mono de Tahiti, Peppermint Mocha, Chamomile Comfort, Lentil Bliss and Sensuous Silk (pictured right) which contains Moringa Seed Oil and silk.

The handmilled shampoo bar recipes – which are made from grating and rebatching an existing bar of soap and adding skin and hair care ingredients – include recipes like Pink Clay & Shea, Strong & Silky, Brewed Coffee, Bouncy Brew – made with brown ale, Chocolate Chili – made with cayenne pepper and chocolate, Roobis Tea & Coconut, Matcha Green Tea, and Yucca & Nettle Leaf. Each recipe includes a photograph of the finished product as well as photographs of the steps involved.

In addition to the twenty-one shampoo bar recipes included in this book, there are also hair rinse and hair mask recipes, as well as information on creating and using hair oil, tips for using your shampoo bars and packaging ideas. There’s also an excellent suppliers list of places to buy ingredients for your shampoo bar projects as well as a list of soapmaking mold suppliers. Of course one of my favorite suppliers for organic ingredients, Mountain Rose Herbs, is included within these extensive lists.